So, what do you call carbonated beverages in your neck of the woods? I thought it was weird to order a coke in Florida and have the waitress ask "What kind?" Up here, if you ask for a coke you'll get...a Coke. They'll even usually ask if Pepsi is okay since even that's NOT COKE. I especially thought it was weird to call non-cola beverages coke, like Sprite or Mountain Dew. I have heard Soda, Soda Pop (and its variant Sodi-pop), and Coke, and they seem to be regionally based. Any other words and descriptions that you find to be regional? These are funny and interesting to me.
Growing up in Ohio, we always called it pop. No one else here calls it that. But since I refuse to use Coke for everything, I just call things by their real name.
Hmmm... it's weird to me that down here some people refer to the interstates as "I-H-10" instead of "I-10" (Interstate Highway)
I'm a "soda" sayer, I think.
So, isn't it weird when Brand names become representative of the product?
Fridge does NOT stand for "refrigerator": It stands for Frigidaire.
Kleenexes should be called "facial tissues."
Tupperware and Rubbermaid tend to be used for plastic containers of all sizes.
I used to think brands should like it when they gain this sort of overwhelming recognition, BUT then again, the dilution can surely hurt them, too. I prefer Puffs (with lotion), but still ask Josh to "hand me a kleenex." Our "fridge" is Kenmore...although our stove is a Frigidaire...hmmmm.
As a side note, I think something similar has happened with our political parties, and that's weird to me. "Democrats," as per their name, should be fighting for increasingly direct representation in our government, while "Republicans" should be pushing for representative government. BUT, if you identify yourself with one or the other you're more likely to be thought of as socially liberal or conservative, in favor or against welfare/other government agencies. Isn't that weird? Or is it just me?
Funny, we were just talking abut this at work today. Most people don't "search" things online anymore; instead they "Google" it. Good for Google, bad for Yahoo and others...
For those few of you who don't know, my family lived in Bratislava, Slovakia for 4 1/2 years when I was in middle school. (We moved back to the States between my freshman and sophomore years in HS.) One of our favorite places to visit was Prague, Czech Republic. The Communists had left a lot of the buildings there relatively untouched when they had destroyed a lot of historical sites in other countries.
During one visit, we took a long bus ride. When we got out, we were in a beautiful field that stretched around us. The meadow was full of grass, wild flowers, and a smallish building. We went into the building and learned about Lidice. (Lid-EAT-se)
This meadow had once been a village. Czechoslovakia was annexed by Germany very early on as part of Chamberlain's appeasement policy. To say things were hard for the Czech and Slovak people under Nazi rule would be an understatement. The Nazi's called all the land that was possessed by any Slavic race "lebensraum" - living space for the Nazi's to take for German expansion - you can imagine what would have happened to the current occupants.
In 1941, Hitler appointed Reinherd Heydrich (security police chief of the SS) as deputy Reichs-protektor. Under him, the terror increased as he and his men hunted down over 5000 anti-Fascist fighters and their helpers; some were even summarily executed or sent to concentration camps.
The Czech government in exile in London decided that things could not continue with Heydrich at the helm. On May 27, 1941, Czechoslovak parachutists mortally wounded Heydrich before being killed themselves. (I have seen a movie about this, but don't remember the name.) And then the reprisals began.
A chance phrase in a letter brought the Gestapo's eyes to Lidice, a small village near Prague. A family there had a son serving with the British army. A thorough search showed no evidence of complicity with the assassination of Heydrich or any other banned items (weapons, radios, etc.) But an example needed to be made.
The example began without warning a few hours after midnight on June 10, 1942. The Nazi's recorded their deed. "This film served as document No. 379 at the Nuremberg trials of the Nazi German leaders in 1945." We watched this video in the tiny museum that stands there.
-173 Lidice men were shot.
-The women and children were taken to the gym at the elementary school.
-After three days of waiting, the children were separated from their mothers. A few were selected as young and "germanic" enough and sent to German families for re-education. The rest were sent an extermination camp in Poland where they were killed by poisonous gas.
-The women were sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp.
After the inhabitants had been dealt with, the Nazi's set about to remove Lidice from the map. They began by burning the houses and then razed their ruins with plastic explosives. They destroyed the church and even the cemetery. By 1943, all that was left was an empty field hedged by signs forbidding entry.
A closer look at that beautiful meadow showed the foundations of buildings. Quite a few buidings, really. We walked among them and thought about what had happened there. Veterans are the reason there aren't more Lidices. Have a good Veterans day.
Thanks for sharing this! It is so important to remember these things and make sure that the future generations realize how horrible some things in the past really were. Also I love your last point--I couldn't agree more!!!
Very sad-and very true. I wish more history was taught in schools! I saw your comment on Tim's blog- our computer is still down and so I only have limited access to a computer when Tim's brings home the laptop. Otherwise I am internet-less!
Well, we did achieve votage this afternoon. We walked down to the youth center where the voting is with the dogs and took turns inside - dogs only get to vote in some wards of Chicago, I think. Bo was very interested and stood on his front paws trying to see in the window and then ran away every time someone actually exited the building...weirdo.
We have "scantron" type voting here. My dad said that they are supposed to have electronic voting in Aurora, but somehow they ended up with the scantrons, too. The scanning machine said that there had been 657 voters at that machine before me. Interesting.
This is the third presidential election that I have been eligible to vote in. The first was at FC where people gave me a hard time for voting absentee for IL instead of switching my registration to FL. I will say that I don't think I've seen a lot of improvement in the quality of the choices. Sigh.
I am not a very political person, at all. At least, I have a minuscule interest in modern politics, although historical ones are slightly more interesting to me - I feel the same way about wars. Looking back just serves to show how much we HAVEN'T improved. Sigh.
Well, we had a lot of fun at our annual Halloween party. There were really a lot of good costumes this year. One couple came as a really funny elderly couple, another came as Dr. Mel Practice...and can I just say, "Ewww?" One of the best was one of the college students who came as a gym teacher!! He wore gym shorts and tall white socks with dress shoes and had a big mustache and a whistle...he was so funny! Brent and Kendra came as a medieval lord and lady. Josh and I were Robin Hood and Maid Marian - thanks SO much to Kendra for all the hard work she put in, especially on the dress! : ) We got lots of compliments and I really liked how they turned out. I need to get more pics from other people...I forgot to take many!
Brent won tickets to the Illinois v. Iowa game today, but they were going to be out of town, so they gave us the tickets!! It was GREAT! The temps were in the low 70's and cooled to an extremely beautiful mid-60's. It was a GREAT game, too, very exciting and the teams played pretty well, and best of all the Illini won! They kicked a longish field goal to win in the last 20 seconds! It was really great and exciting and the stadium was FULL. Here are some pictures:
As you can see - it is kosher to wear orange. A lot of people wear orange even just around town on days when the Illini play. The marching band played 80's songs. I really like to
hear the band. They played " 7 Nation Army" between downs sometimes - that's one of my favorite songs! The "super fans" are called the Orange Crush and they do all sorts of crazy things. When we first moved here, I didn't know that they were an actual organization. This cracks me up!
